


elphie isn't dead

by mythicalqueen



Category: Wicked - All Media Types
Genre: Alice Isn't Dead AU, Alternate Universe, Body Horror, F/F, Gen, i didn't use the archive warning bc i wasnt really sure but there is some horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:54:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25834585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythicalqueen/pseuds/mythicalqueen
Summary: I know that life isn’t a story and all that, but I’m trying to figure out where to start this one. This story. Does it start with you? With meeting you? With marrying you? With losing you? I don’t know, Elphie. No, it doesn’t start with any of that. That’s a bigger story. This one doesn’t even start with me getting into this truck, not really, that’s the road trip. Which is technically different from this story. This just starts with that bottle.
Relationships: Elphaba Thropp/Galinda Upland
Comments: 7
Kudos: 8





	elphie isn't dead

**Author's Note:**

> okay a few things.  
> 1\. wow ao3 really nerfed me by making her tag galinda huh... in this house we refer to her as glinda.  
> 2\. this is very very heavily based on the first episode of alice isn't dead. i have thoughts on how the rest of the story would go, but it's not something i'm super committed to writing, but i still wanted to share the concept. if anyone feels like writing a more complete version of this, please do, then tell me about it, and i will read it and love you forever. if anyone wants to just yell about the concept with me, im palukoo on tumblr.

So. Truck driving. Yeah. 

_ Radio static _

You know when something awful happens and you don’t really know how to react it? So you just don’t? It’s kind of like the whole five stages of grief, you know? It’s almost like the denial bit, but you’re not really actively denying it because that’s still a reaction. You’re not even ignoring, not really, because that’s still a response. It’s just like time stills so that you don’t have to react because you don’t know how to. Except it doesn’t, not really, and you have to move on.

_ Radio static _

I will be honest here. This is not some place I ever imagined myself. If, a few years ago, you told me I’d be in the cab of a truck driving cross country, I would sooner have imagined that I was elaborately kidnapped than that I voluntarily put myself in this situation. Repeatedly. At the cost of my entire life, my job, everything. I wouldn’t believe you. But then, I think if I was also told that I was doing it for you, I might believe it. I don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of things I couldn’t have imagined before.

_ Radio static _

Anyways, that’s how it felt when you d-- when you  _ left.  _ Did you hear that, Elphie? I almost said died. I thought you had died, because I didn’t really think you would leave me without any word, any sign, anything. I mean, there were times I thought you might leave me, or just leave, but I always thought you’d  _ tell  _ me instead of just disappearing. So I thought you died. I didn’t know how. I waited and waited for the news report about a dead woman, I waited for a call to identify your body and nothing came. But nothing came about you being alive either. I’ve never been an optimist.

_ Radio static _

That’s a loaded sentence. It’s true, of course, but what specifically am I referring to? The fact that I couldn’t have imagined how beautiful the stars are without pollution? The fact that I had no real concept of how tall the Rocky Mountains are? They’re so much taller than I would have expected. You know, I think we always forget how truly small we are until we see something like that. They’re so tall, Elphie. Like you. Like this truck.

_ Radio static _

I know that life isn’t a story and all that, but I’m trying to figure out where to start this one. This story. Does it start with you? With meeting you? With marrying you? With losing you? I don’t know, Elphie. No, it doesn’t start with any of that. That’s a bigger story. This one doesn’t even start with me getting into this truck, not really, that’s the road trip. Which is technically different from this story. This just starts with that bottle.

_ Radio static _

I was on one of those stretches of road where you feel like there’s nothing. There is nothing. You have to remind yourself that you’re just driving from one city to the next, making a delivery. That you are between two cities, not just in some desolate area where you occasionally spot another truck. I guess you’re always between two cities, technically. Anyways, it was one of those midwestern— or, western, I’m not sure, one of those states between west and midwestern— stretches of land where there’s nothing but plains and corn and the rare rest stop. But I’d passed the rest stop and there wouldn’t be another one for a while, and there was no guarantee it would have a vending machine. 

At some point there was a sign for a diner and a gas station, and I was running low on gas, too. I took the exit. It was one of those obnoxious exits where they don’t tell you you actually have to drive another few miles down another highway, only this one is rural so there’s really nothing. It was pretty late when I pulled up to the diner, which was next to the gas station. Thank god it was 24 hours. I was relieved, but right away something about that diner didn’t sit right with me.

You know how I am about buildings. I don’t like when I can’t place the architectural style. I know it’s weird. I know you always tried to be supportive of that weird quirk of mine, but I can see you smiling in amusement. God, Elphie, I’d give anything to see that smile now. I’d suffer my weird architecture induced anxiety for the rest of my life if it meant you’d be with me for it.

That’s not the point. The building should’ve looked like every other pancake house in the middle of nowhere America, but something about it was unmistakably Art Deco, but like it had been built over something Victorian, and then someone tried to make it look brutalistic. It’s not really the building that matters, I just want you to know how bad it looked. How on edge I already felt. I parked my truck. It had one of those parking lots designed for trucks, because truck drivers are the only ones who stop there.

I walked into the diner. All the booths were empty except one, and the tired looking waitress gave me a weak smile and gestures for me to sit at the bar, at the far end away from this man. He’s where this all starts. Him and that bottle.

_ Radio static _

Trucks are so tall. You’d laugh at that and call me short, but it’s true. They’re so tall. They’re so much taller than any of us, and sitting in them makes you so tall. I know, I’m short, but this isn’t a height any of us are used to.

And the power, and the speed, it’s all so unnatural too. 

What does that even mean? Natural? I mean, sure, cars and trucks are all very new in the grand scheme of things, but aren’t they technically made up from parts of nature, just like everything? 

I don’t really like the word unnatural. It’s used on people too much, but that’s not the point. The point is driving this thing is weird. I’ll get used to it. Unless I find you first.

_ Radio static _

You know that feeling you get when you’re being watched? That’s what made me notice him. He wasn’t being loud or anything, and he was all the way at the other end of the bar. I was just talking to the waitress. She wasn’t saying much, which is fair, it was late and I know customer service sort of sucks, but you know how I am, Elphie. I like to talk to people and be friendly, even though it also scares me. I’m good with people, usually. How do you combat social anxiety? You get really good at being social. But you knew that about me already, I’m just rambling. Where was I?

Right. I felt like he was watching me, so I looked in that direction. The bar felt long. Like too long to fit in the diner. It looked small from the outside. I mean, it looked kind of small from the inside, too, honestly, but the bar looked long. Sure enough, he was staring at me. Watching me. Not even trying to hide it.

“Hi,” I called to him, putting on a nice smile. I know that it probably wasn’t my finest idea to call out to a creepy man, but I did it. He took a long sip from that bottle.

It was green glass, maybe smaller than the standard size for a glass bottle, but not by too much. It wasn’t any soda or beer I recognized, but he was far enough away at that point that I probably wouldn’t have been able to identify it even if it was something common. I don’t think it was.

The bottle wasn’t even what was bothering me. It was the way he was drinking from it. Sloppily. Pressing the neck of the bottle haphazardly to his chapped but wet-- from saliva or his drink, I couldn’t tell-- lips and tossing it back like he was trying to take it like a shot or something. With each sip-- if you could call it that, it was really more of a gasping gulp-- more of the liquid dripped, missing his mouth and running down to coat his lower lip and chin.

It didn’t look like he was drinking because he was thirsty. Or like he enjoyed it. He was just drinking. Like he was trying to consume as quickly as possible. Like it was his job. His function, his purpose.

He stood up. There was something wrong about the way he stood. Like he wasn’t really meant to be standing. He was slouched over, but not just a little bit like just how some people walk. Almost like he was used to walking on his hands too. And his arms looked too long too. Like if he leaned just a little further, he would be walking on his arms, too. I swear I could see his shoulder blades, Elphie, standing up higher than his head at that posture, lifting his polo shirt up to sag awkwardly between them. Like mountains. Like the Rockies, Elphie, like you can’t really believe they’re that tall.

But since I mentioned it, that polo shirt was awful. Not like bad fashion, though that, too, in honesty. No, like bad hygiene. Like it hadn’t been washed since it had been put on the first time, which looked like it must have been at least a year ago. It was so covered in dirt and stains I couldn’t tell what color it had started as. It had a logo in the corner that I couldn’t quite make out until he got closer. 

And he got closer. He walked up to me with his strange, inhuman gait and straightened his back slightly to climb up on the stool next to me. I didn’t flinch, Elphie, but I wanted to. 

His voice had a sort of howling quality, Elphie. Like the wind, or a monkey, or a wolf. “Nice evening,” he said. I didn’t give it much thought at the time, too focused on all his other oddities, but it wasn’t, at least not to me. It was swelteringly hot. “Doesn’t look much like rain.”

That made me think of you, Elphie. About how much you always hated the rain. About how you used to always carry an umbrella, and how you’d stay in all day if you could when it was raining. 

I don’t know where you are, Elphie, but wherever it is, I hope it’s not raining.

His lips were coated with that drink, which up close looked sticky and thick. It seemed like it was drying around his mouth. Usually I’d say something back, but I didn’t want to make conversation. But you know me and social graces. I nodded in acknowledgement and hoped beyond reason that he’d leave it at that. 

He didn’t. He grinned. It was a horrifying expression on him. The slow spread of lips that seemed to fold in on themselves, revealing a large mouth with large, yellowing teeth and too thin, too long canines that slotted together.

“Hope you don’t mind if I join you,” he said, his eerie smile growing. Like he was amused. Like he’d just said something hilarious and he was waiting for someone else to get it. Like it didn’t matter what I said, he was gonna sit there no matter what.

I wanted to tell him to leave, Elphie. But I don’t think he would’ve, even if I had. I don’t know. I guess I’ll never know what would’ve happened if I said that, but... I’m usually right about that sort of thing. “Sure,” I said, polite but noncommital. 

“Sure,” he repeated, closing his mouth to swallow, a strange, shifting motion in his throat that seemed wrong. At first I thought he’d only been swallowing like that because he was taking in enormous gulps from that bottle, but he did it then with no drink in his mouth. He smiled again, the lips almost indistinguishable from skin and thus looking simultaneously large and thin to the point of nonexistent parting uncomfortable to reveal those teeth. “Good people deserve good things,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say to that. What the hell do you say to that? 

“You’re good, aren’t you, Glinda?” he said, leaning over to one side, his arm on the counter. He scratched at his neck. It made an awful sound, like his skin was dry and papery.

I froze for a second. “H-how did you know my--”

“It’s dangerous out there,” he said suddenly before I could finish. He kept scratching, and it kept making that awful sound.

I almost laughed. “Out th-- out where? Here? Beyond here? Life? I know life is dangerous, you don’t need to tell me about that. Are you going to explain death to me?”

I guess I had moved past my usual social niceties, somewhere around when he said my name.

His grin widened again, and he let out a sort of chittering laugh. “Yes. I’m here to explain death to you.” 

He leaned in close to me. I remembered the logo I had caught sight of earlier.

Apath. 

His lips looked wrong, and his nose sunken in, and his eyes dark and wide. His hair and beard that was just too long to be called stubble stuck out in odd directions. “Wanna see something funny?” he whispered. He didn’t give me time to answer before standing.

He walked in that odd posture of his to the one occupied booth. The man sitting there looked like an aging professor. His clothes weren’t exactly well maintained nor did they fit him right, but they were nice. He had wiry glasses on, and looked up from his tea, seeming annoyed by the approach.

“Hey, Doc,” the man with the Apath-- which by the way, what kind of a company name is that?-- shirt said.

Apath man grabbed “Doc” by the neck, and any protest he had fell silent. His face went blank. The Apath man picked him up and they walked to the door. “Doc” looked vacant. Like his soul was missing.

I know you don’t believe in souls, Elphie, and I’m not sure I do, but I don’t know how else to describe it. 

Neither of the men paid their checks, and no one said anything. No one stopped them.

But it was...

_ Radio static _

You know, sometimes I hope it is raining wherever you are. Sometimes you’re the one I hate, Elphie.

_ Radio static _

…out to the parking lot. He was waiting for me.

It was what he did next.

_ Radio static _

I’m on one of those empty stretches of land again. This time it’s flat. It’s not quite desert, but it’s not really fields, either. Dry plains. This country has so much of those. I never realized how much until this all started. I haven’t seen a house in miles. Or even a farm. 

It’s getting dark. The sunset just finished a little bit ago. I don’t know how long. Time is weird when you’re just driving. Driving and talking.

We talk a lot, as a species, about the night sky. It’s one of those subjects that come up more often than, say, fields of poppies. That’s just an example. Which is interesting, because fields of poppies are  _ something _ . They are tangible objects that can be looked at. And so much of the night sky is nothing at all. It’s just empty.

Or don’t listen to me. I’m just a lady driving.. I don’t even remember what... from one place to another. I only say because…well…if you could see what I’m seeing you’d understand. The night sky is something striking right now without all the light pollution getting in the way. It’s beautiful.

So much that I’ve seen is beautiful. More than you would think. Even the worse things.

And isn’t it funny that the emptiness enhances the night sky? Emptiness enhancing emptiness. The void bringing out the best of the void.

We are nothing if not absurd.

We are nothing.

_ Radio static _

He was waiting for me in the parking lot, holding Doc by the throat. I think Doc was aware again now, but he couldn’t move or talk, Apath man’s grip was too tight. 

It made my stomach turn Elphie. I wanted to do something, but I...

The lights at the adjacent gas station were out now, and there was only the light from the odd diner windows casting odd shadows.

Both of them stared at me. Doc looked afraid, his eyes wide. Bewildered, almost. I don’t know that bewilderment is the usual reaction to death, but that’s how he looked. Bewildered that the future without him was about to meet with the present.

The man with the odd teeth and prominent shoulder blades looked at me with flat, dark eyes. Like a bad painting of a face.

They stared at me. And then the man with the skin for lips... he took a bite out of Doc. Tore out a chunk of flesh by his left armpit. Doc started to bleed... so much, there was so much blood. He didn’t scream, or move, he just whimpered, an oddly shaky sound almost like soft braying. 

The other thing-- thing, not man-- put his strange lips up to the wound and started drinking, biting into the surrounding flesh and gulping down bits of flesh and blood like he had gulped down whatever was in that bottle. He still had that same mechanic way of doing it. Like it was what he was made for, not like he needed or enjoyed it.

It was a demonstration. Apath man wanted me to know. And I did.

I ran back to the truck, of course. I locked the doors, of course. Of course, I pulled out of the parking lot as fast as a truck that size will go…which is not fast enough in a situation like that, of course.

Of course I cried, Elphie. Of course I did.

Behind me in the mirror, I could still see them. Could see the distant shadow of Doc, or whatever his real name was, dying without a friendly face in sight. The only person who could help him driving herself away to safety, and just the company of a monster left.

I couldn’t see details anymore. Those were in my memory.

_ Radio static _

It’s really dark now. Not just dusk, and there aren’t any other cars around to light the way. It’s just my truck and the reflectors and the stars and the moon.

_ Radio static _

I’ve seen the Apath man again. I’ve seen him lurking by the bathrooms at rest stops, in the snack aisle at gas stations, sitting alone at the biggest booths of the smallest roadside bars, places with one kind of beer on the menu and video poker in the bathroom by the toilet which has a cracked seat.

Something wrong in his gait, like he’s not meant to walk on two legs. Like he’s not meant to walk.

And sharp, large teeth. Not sharp enough to be fangs, but not human either.

And hunched, tall shoulder blades and skin-like lips.

He hasn’t talked to me again, but I’ve been seeing him, and he knows it. He wants me to know he’s following me.

I don’t know who this…I won’t say “man.” He isn’t a man. I don’t know what he is. Do  _ you _ know, Elphie? Is this why you left? Or was it something else?

_ Radio static _

Was it me?

_ Radio static _

And now, here, the road between two places I’ve never heard of in open plains. Useless stages of grief, an unusual height, closer to the night sky than I am to any other human. A night sky that seems gorgeous and heartbreaking, even though it’s not. It’s not anything. It just isn’t.

Where are you, Elphie? Why can’t I find you?

I’ll keep driving this truck. I’ll keep wandering this country. I’m going to find you. I will.

I just hope I do it before Apath man finds me.

Every time I look behind, I worry that the headlights I see are him, and his strange stretched out smile and his flat, wide eyes staring at me and he presses the gas.

This better be worth it, Elphie.

Nothing ever could be.

  
  
  
  



End file.
